Wal-Mart! Coming soon to a county tax accessors office near you!
Posted on 01/29/2005 9:23:51 PM PST by Former Military Chick
Here’s a shocker. I love Wal-Mart. I know it’s almost always on the receiving end of bad press. It ruins neighborhoods. It puts small businesses out of business. It wrecks the balance of trade. It pays its workers poorly and treats them mean. It makes overseas workers into slaves. That's what the news says. The truth is that Wal-Mart is a major blessing for most Americans who live close enough to one to shop there and for the people who work at them. My smart friend C.L. Werner in Omaha made the point really clearly. When a Wal-Mart opens in a town, he said, it's as if everyone in the town got a raise. That's because the stuff at Wal-Mart is so much cheaper than that same merchandise was anywhere else. This is not a trivial thing. Now, don't get me wrong. Target and Sears and K-Mart and J.C. Penney and Brooks Brothers also sell good stuff usually at bargain prices, but they do not have the same reach of stores, the same astounding prices that Wal-Mart offers every day. This makes the people who shop there richer. Price matters a lot to most people. I am sure Wal-Mart is stiff competition for the stores and supermarkets across America. I feel bad for the people who lose their stores because of Wal-Mart. But not everyone is a store owner. Everyone is a consumer, and Wal-Mart is about as good a friend as the consumer ever had.Is Wal-Mart ruining the balance of trade? Well, let me put it like this: I buy American whenever I can find it.
But there are a lot of things that are just not usually made in the USA any longer. Toasters. Hot pots. Color televisions. Underwear. Since the goods are almost always made overseas, why not buy them at the best possible price? By the way, if someone knows of a good American made toaster, please stand up and shout.
Is Wal-Mart wrecking small towns? Not the ones I see, which are mostly in North Idaho. Those towns are booming. And the closest you get to a town square is the Wal-Mart, where neighbors visit with neighbors in the aisles all day and all night, in air conditioning, out of the rain.
Is Wal-Mart impoverishing third world workers in sweat shops? Heck, no. Conditions in those places are far from ideal. But they are far better than working on the farm or begging in the streets or selling themselves into prostitution or whatever they were doing before they came to work for foreign suppliers of US stores. The gains in prosperity in the developing countries because their people can sell to America through Wal-Mart are astounding. As to the people who work at Wal-Mart, they seem to me to be bright, alert men and women who work there because it's the best they can do in their town or at their age. Plus, they seem happy. The usual clerk at Wal-Mart gives a lot better service than the clerk at Tiffany. I would like it if they were paid more, but they are in a competitive labor market. And what about those greedy stockholders? A lot of them are those same Wal-Mart clerks, many of whom got rich from their stock.
In the real world, Wal-Mart is as much of a boon to the American shopper as the Sears catalogue was long ago.
Jeer at it all you want, all you cool people, but, it's progress, big time.
I have a huge amount of respect for Mr. Nixon. he ended that god forsaken Vietnam war. No matter what else, he saved a lot of young men from dying.
I just wish they would turn the dern PA system down a smidge. Those little teeny boppers just love to hang on that thing listening to their own shrill, shrieking voices all day long.
It's easy to see why Wal Mart beat the pants off K Mart: At K Mart, they NEVER had the Corelle Ware or Rubbermaid containers I needed. It was like Soviet stores: You buy what they have, not what you want. Wal Mart ALWAYS has my brand of dishwasher soap, containers, motor oil, etc. at what I can be confident are the best available prices or near enough that I don't have to worry I'm being ripped off.
That, simply put, is why Wal Mart wins. And, if I want something inexpensive but stylish enough that I don't have to hide it in a closet, I go to Target (pronounced "Tar-ZHAY").
What's on Main Street now? Microbreweries, Sur la Table (upscale kitchenwares), an upscale appliance shop, etc. - stuff you can't get at Wal Mart.
It is a balancing act: The appliance shop was snooty and would not give a discount on the fancy cooktop I wanted, so I went with the best Jenn Air available from Home Depot for one third the price - and the super-hot burner is hotter than the frou frou German model I originally wanted.
Henry Ford paid his workers well because he made fabulous margins and was crushing his competitors - and throwing THEIR employees out of work. That lasted until other manufacturers adopted Ford's methods.
I agree with you about executive culture being rotten at many companies. HP, for example, is a tragedy about to unfold. But that is for their boards and shareholders to handle.
Yah.
Living in Phoenix where it can and does get up to 118 F in the shade during the summer...
I wanna get rich enough to become a snowbird!
Full Disclosure: When in school in Minnesota, I once walked home 2 miles in -5 F weather after having three wisdom teeth pulled!
Cheers!
"There is an air of mendacity 'round here."
CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF
At least in the rural areas, they have driven out all of the competitive places to work.
Congress are not the ones demanding that all production of new products must be shifted to China!
Wal-Mart! Coming soon to a county tax accessors office near you!
Show me a business that doesn't try to get land cheap via eminent domain and I'll show you a business that spends too much on land. Everybody does that, because various county and city officials throughout the land are eager to do it to show everybody how they're "helping". Don't blame Wally because county and city government officials are overdressed prostitutes, they were doing this to draw in business long before WalMart was invented, and will be doing it long after the last WalMart closes.
Wal-Mart is premier leader in the movement. But, of course, since everybody does it, it must be OK. From my point of view, all who make these shady deals are equally guilty, and Wal-Mart is more equal than others.
Don't blame Wally because county and city government officials are overdressed prostitutes, they were doing this to draw in business long before WalMart was invented, and will be doing it long after the last WalMart closes.
Using eminent domain to condemn property to give to private businesses for higher tax receipts? Before Wal-Mart was invented? I don't think so. But you're welcome to give me specific instances.
"Is Wal-Mart impoverishing third world workers in sweat shops? Heck, no. "
That's not what many reports have said. Supporting Wal-Mart is supporting child abuse a they abuse children in third world nations.
"Don't blame Wally because county and city government officials are overdressed prostitutes,"
That's like saying don't blame the pimp for the hooker. sorry, but we still jail the pimp.
If ever I read a Photoshop Op, this is it!!!
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